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Telephone company stays healthy
Spends $33.8 million on salaries and benefits by Nancy Gardiner
NNSL (July 16/97) - The North's phone company made $12.1 million last year, down marginally from 1995. According to NorthwesTel's 1996 annual report, long-distance revenues totalled almost $75 million. Local telephone service generated nearly $22 million. The company took in $14 million from private wire services, and reports other revenues of $10 million. On the expense side, salaries and benefits took the biggest chunk out of the pie at $33.8 million. Expenses totalled approximately $91.2 million. Annual capital expenditures were about $32.5-million, $4.6 million of which was spent on cable television. The 1996 annual report has the company placed in a healthy financial position. Whether that kind of result can be repeated is another matter. Long-distance competition is no longer on the horizon for NorthwesTel, but "on the company's doorstep," says NorthwesTel president Jean Poirier and CEO Murray Makin in a press release. The communities of Colville Lake, Nahanni Butte and Trout Lake received telephone service in 1996. A four-year project to upgrade satellite facilities acquired from Bell Canada in 1992 was completed. Highlights of 1996 included being awarded the bid to supply all telecommunications services to Canada's first diamond mine under construction near Lac de Gras and a contract to construct a high-speed digital communication network through Ardicom Digital Communications, an alliance of Arctic Co-operatives, Northern Aboriginal Services Co. and NorthwesTel. |